McDonald's Wants to Trademark a 'Simple' New Slogan; Fortune, 3/25/16

Phil Wahba, Fortune; McDonald's Wants to Trademark a 'Simple' New Slogan:

"The hamburger chain, whose U.S. sales are recovering after years of declines, has filed to register a trademark for the slogan “The Simpler the Better,” a phrase that would echo its recent efforts to streamline its menu to speed up service—long a problem for the company—and tame its bureaucracy.

McDonald’s submitted the application to the U.S. Trademark and Patent Office earlier this month.

The filing doesn’t mean the burger chain will actually use the slogan. A company spokesperson told BurgerBusiness.com, which first reported on this filing, “We routinely file intent-to-use trademark applications as part of our regular course of business. We can’t share details at this time as to how this trademark may or may not be used.” (McDonald’s has trademarked terms such as “McBrunch” without ever using them.)"

Reuters; Gilead ordered to pay Merck $200 million in hepatitis C drug patent dispute; Reuters, 3/24/16

Reuters; Gilead ordered to pay Merck $200 million in hepatitis C drug patent dispute:

"A federal jury on Thursday ordered Gilead Sciences Inc (GILD.O) to pay Merck & Co (MRK.N) $200 million in damages for infringing two Merck patents related to a lucrative cure for hepatitis C.

The damages award is far less than the $2 billion Merck had demanded. On Tuesday, the same jury in San Jose, California, upheld the validity of the patents, which lie at the heart of the dispute over Gilead's blockbuster drugs Sovaldi and Harvoni. Together the medicines had more than $20 billion in U.S. sales in 2014 and 2015."

To boldly go where no copyright suit has gone before; Washington Post, 3/24/16

David Post, Washington Post; To boldly go where no copyright suit has gone before:

"Many of the infringement counts (based on similarities in costume design, backdrops, logos, and the like) look pretty straightforward to me, though I’ll be interested to see what arguments the defendants advance in support of their borrowings. [Fair use, which might ordinarily be counted on to give safe harbor to a fan film, might be difficult to sustain here, given the ostensibly commercial nature of the defendant’s production and the plaintiffs’ argument that the defendants have deprived them of licensing revenues to which they are entitled.]

At the same time, I can’t quite understand why Paramount and CBS are going to the litigation mat here, even if they have good legal grounds for doing so. In a nice twist, Justin Lin, who directs Paramount’s own “Star Trek Beyond,” scheduled for release in July, has come out against the suit (tweeting “This is getting ridiculous! I support the fans. Trek belongs to all of us!”), perhaps concerned that it will turn “Star Trek” fans against the whole enterprise (including his film)."

White House tech office to co-host open data roundtables; FedScoop, 3/22/16

Wyatt Kash, FedScoop; White House tech office to co-host open data roundtables:

"The White House Office of Science Technology Policy has unveiled plans to co-host four open data roundtables, with the first to get underway Thursday, as part of a continuing push to advance the use of federal data.

The sessions are expected to bring together a limited number of technical, policy and legal experts from federal agencies, academia and the private sector — and collect input from the public — as part of an effort to accelerate the use of government open data sets, according to an OSTP briefing.

The roundtables, which will be co-hosted and conducted by the Center for Open Data Enterprise, which conducted similar roundtables last year, will focus on four challenges confronting the open data community...

Asia On The Heels Of US And Europe In Patent Applications At WIPO; Developing Countries Lagging; Intellectual Property Watch, 3/16/16

Catherine Saez, Intellectual Property Watch; Asia On The Heels Of US And Europe In Patent Applications At WIPO; Developing Countries Lagging:

"China, Japan and South Korea are among the top five countries filing international patent applications at the World Intellectual Property Organization, while the United States continues to lead in patent and trademark applications. Far behind, developing countries seem to be having a hard time catching up...

The top 10 countries filing under the PCT in 2015 were the US (57,385), Japan (44,235), and China (29,846), followed by Germany, South Korea, France, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Sweden.

According to a WIPO press release, the US has filed the largest annual number of international patent applications for 38 years running. Patent-filing activity by China-based innovators accounted for much of the overall growth in applications, according to the release.

Computer technology and digital communication saw the largest numbers of filing in 2015, each exceeding 16,000, according to the release."

Copyright Office seeks comment on IT modernization plan; FedScoop, 3/18/16

Whitney Blair Wyckoff, FedScoop; Copyright Office seeks comment on IT modernization plan:

"The Copyright Office is seeking comment on a comprehensive technology plan to make its IT “lean, nimble, results-driven, and future-focused.”...

Comments on the plan are due March 31."

As governments open access to data, law lags far behind; ABA Journal, 3/17/16

Lorelai Laird, ABA Journal; As governments open access to data, law lags far behind:

"From municipalities to the White House, governments are launching open data projects—but the judicial branch is falling behind.

Such was the opening, frustrated message of “Public Service Legal Technology in the Data.Gov Era,” a Thursday-morning panel at ABA Techshow.

Adam Ziegler of Harvard Law School’s Library Innovation Lab hammered home the message with a quick tour of government data projects. The federal government has data.gov, a website that offers publicly available data on many topics related to executive branch agencies; 18F: a series of projects from the General Services Administration; and the U.S. Digital Service, a White House project seeking to streamline government services. The White House even has a page on GitHub, a website that allows programmers to post and collaborate on their work.

“We are in an era of amazing progress in access to government data,” said Ziegler, a programmer and former attorney. But “where are we with the law? Almost nowhere, unfortunately.” The nonprofit U.S. Open Data assessed publicly accessible legal information in every state—and found poor accessibility almost everywhere.

Ziegler’s lab is doing its best to change that with its ambitious “Free the Law” project with Ravel Law, which will scan Harvard’s entire 40,000-volume collection of U.S. case law."